Most of us have lost the ability to perceive anything outside our physical senses and it has trapped us in a minimal and finite view of everything we think we know about our existence here on earth
Bozebits – 02/19/2023
Bozebits – 02/18/2023
Your path may sometimes seem lonely, but you can never fail
in life. Something inside you, all of us, for that matter,
always knows the treasure of a lonely day
Bozebits 02/17/2023
Consider excessive thinking or a chattering mind as “matter
unorganized.” Slow or even stop your thoughts; This is the
path to awareness
Carl’s Nutshell
Bozebits
The most incredible story ever told is not the one you speak
but the one you live
YOU the CREATOR- The Unchangeable Change
What we like to call change, for most of us, is really an adding of layers to the onion rather than removing them. We tell ourselves “let me do this, accomplish that or go here instead of where I am, and everything will be better.” It won’t; please get that!
Most of us are full of layers that are little more than avoidance of real-life experiences we find ourselves in. We believe that we can change our circumstances simply by running from them and that, somehow, will unravel us but really it just winds us up even tighter.
What you don’t experience fully becomes the nature of your experience even when you think you have changed. What you don’t take care of now becomes a layer; a full-length overcoat that is heavy and burdensome!
Get good with where you are; be honest with it and never let yourself be fooled into believing you are not its creator. You can run from creation, but you can never run from yourself, e.g., “the Creator.” Live where you are because “where you are” is the only place life exists.
Carl
KNOWING
When we stop talking to ourselves we open ourselves to the vaults of eternity and the understanding of men, which can only be understood three dimensionally, gives way to knowing that is not of this world but of the infinity of which it is only a part. The language of infinity is silence and the sweetness of knowing, as the gods know, is simply known. There is no describing it in three dimensional terms, thus no reason for talking and explanation. Metaphorically, we need to see with our ears and to hear with our eyes that which can only come from an unspoken language we all know but have simply drowned out in the language of everyday life. The greater part of understanding is that which cannot be comprehended or explained by the languages we speak! When we stop talking to ourselves and silence the noise of language and thinking we become the receptors of understanding and knowing that descends upon us from the vast stores of the universe from which there is no beginning or ending.
We are literally a part of everything we see and don’t see in this universe. We are inextricably connected at a deep level to all that is, was, or will ever be. In fact, to say that we are connected to all that was, is or will be is a great example of the limitation of our languages. Past and future do not exist and cannot be a part of the now that we find ourselves in! We carry the past with us in our minds and the future we fantasize about but they are nonexistent and our language is remiss to give a concept of that. Instead we devise languages that gives them meaning and place in our limited understanding and we are forever trying to reconcile nonexistence with existence. They are both without meaning except to the mind that has quieted itself and the inner god who knows all things on some other level that cannot be put into to the words of language as we know it. Our existence is truly profound when we give up viewing it in the confinement of our own illusions that are constantly reinforced by our talking and thinking. Sometimes in the quiet stillness of the mind all that is simply is and that is all the knowing we need. At the energetic level everything just is!
The God of the Old Testaments stated, “I am the same yesterday, today and forever.” It might be better said “I am yesterday, today and forever.” There are no distinctions between past, present and future in the realm of knowing quiet, distilled truth and all of us at one time or another have felt the peace that comes in that knowing. It settles upon us like mist and completely engulfs our mind and soul with an awareness that is unexplainable. Space and time lose their meaning at such times. Knowing is the most sublime dimension and it operates outside space and time as our language has described it. Knowing is the only place gods could ever make the statement that they are yesterday, today and forever because in such a place time and space have no bounds. They don’t exist. Three dimensional physics hold no ties to the infinite possibilities of knowing.
In the realm of gods there is no language of time or space. There isn’t a language of understanding that wrests our thinking and talking from an endless pursuit to comprehend everything three dimensionally. Gods know all things exist inside the present moment and whether we judge those things good or evil is of no consequence in infinity. The space between the past and now or the future and now are nothing more than shadows. Shadows of things we create and put there to fill a void. A void that does not exist in infinity; A void of our own making. There is no life past or life future. It all is happening now, in the present and we don’t need to understand it! We don’t need a historical context or three dimensional perspectives. The energy of life exists always and has never been disconnected in any way to time past or time future. There are no voids in space or time! The energy of life is always teeming and present and it permeates every construct we have created to define it in three dimensional terms. Energy is everywhere and energy is life! All that we think we were or will be is all happening now and only in this now can we know what gods know! In this present moment where the world has stopped, we as ageless existence, witness our oneness with it. It cannot be comprehended nor need it be. Our oneness with it transcends comprehension of the mind and simply makes us it!
We are the good that we love, the evil we hate, the darkness we fear, the light that gives hope. We are all things, people, places we imagine or cannot imagine. We are all thoughts and forms and are endowed with power to create the good we cherish or the evil we despise in this existence. We are the beauty that loves and the ugliness that hates. We are the then, the now, and the yet to be simultaneously in a never-ending timeless sea of infinite life. We are receptors of every form of energy that surrounds us continuously and endlessly and while we do not have a language, in this reality, that can accurately describe everything that is going on around us we do have a language, not of words and expressions, that communicates to us clearly that with everything in the universe we are a part! We are being spoken to by infinity every single moment of our lives and all we need to do is stop, be still and listen and in waves of indescribable beauty it pours into us.
The spectrum of time and space leaves us wondering for the “how” of all things. Our egoic minds want to know order, chronology and placement in the reality we have created. We crave this knowing and want our language to describe it to us so we understand in relationship to our reality.
Instead of feeling the wonder of existence and our oneness with it we want to define it, thus diluting it in finite reason and dogmatic conjecture. We search for definitions and descriptions where none are needed nor will we ever be able to develop a language that could ever give adequate meaning to the spectacle of this infinite universe we are all a part of. We must leave the norms we have come to accept and step outside time and space to ever be able to know as the gods all the mysteries we seek to know and describe. Leaving the spectrum of time and space leaves us in absolute awe of everything. Good is evil and evil is good. It all just is. We breathe all of it in and embrace it as what we are, without judgment and without question, historical context or analysis of any kind. Only acceptance and love. Not the love that ties us to anyone or anything, but the pure love that holds no boundary. No limits. No emotion. Energetic love that exist in all things, at all times and in all places.
We have no words, no thoughts, no thinking. Ego has blended into everything else and all struggles have ceased. We have no arguments. The existence of every act, thought or thing is us as we are it.
Existence fills our bodies as our bodies fill existence. All that is, is known to us because we are the knowing. The seeker no longer seeks for that which is not understood. Knowing requires no understanding. “All is.” We are the “all” that “is”. Knowing simply rests upon us and it requires no words or expressions or thoughts or thinking to give it place in our existence. It fills us with wonder and awe that has no expression. In the quietness of mind knowing finds a place within where it instills itself and in that instant we know God for she is us and we are her.
“Be still and know the knowing.” “You are god and in stillness she will find you.”
Adapted from the book: On Being God-Beyond Your Life’s Purpose!
The Unconscious Life – The Dreamer and the Dreamed
For many of us, life as we now know it is the dream, a dream in the sense that who we really are is unknown to us and sleeps soundly amidst the noise, hustle and bustle of everyday life, and egocentric conversation. Occasionally, as we dream, our level of consciousness is raised to a level of awareness that reminds us, as we sleep, that we are asleep. That something or someone long forgotten is there beneath the noise, quiet and calm, but ever present and sometimes only aware as through a fog or mist. Occasionally, we sense another self and wish we could know it in a way that we know other things in our typical dream world.
We are often reminded that we are something else, completely different from that which we manifest in the dream. At times, it is as if the part of us that is asleep and the part that is the dream become simultaneously and vaguely aware of the other’s existence, but also know that being in the presence of the other is intolerable. It is a parallel awareness that is often fleeting, but nonetheless powerful and jarring to all of our senses. At these times, we become thoughtful and contemplative and wonder “Who Am I?”, or we may ask other deep questions such as “Where did I come from?” and “Where am I going?” It is almost as if the sudden awareness of that sleeping self is a haunting, a calling out from another part of ourselves that is eerily familiar but distant and unknown as well.
The feeling is not unlike déjà vu. Sometimes we may ask, “What was that?” We may become quiet and subdued and contemplative as we try to put into our own three-dimensional terms what we know, but don’t know! Our contemplation may take us back through our history to recapitulate defining events in our lives that shaped us but drain us of our energy. Some of those past memories may trigger sorrow, joy, sadness, happiness or any number of other emotions or feelings that seem to cause us to retract into another place of meaning, discovery, and knowing that we struggle to understand. “Where did I go?” we may ask as we try to bring forward into present time that seemingly lost soul we thought we knew and actually did know sometime before. Locked inside that knowing, we struggle to identify who it was that was hidden away and forgotten, only to be thought of in these rarest of moments when, for whatever reason, the dreamer tries to awaken from that deep unknowing sleep.
It is as if the dreamer dreams and the dreams themselves live. They do, in fact, seem so real that we are lost to the illusion on display before us and rarely do we ever escape it. Life for most of us is the dream of one who fell asleep long, long ago, perhaps as children. The process of falling asleep begins at birth when everyone in our newly awakened life takes on the responsibility of convincing us that what they see is all that is there. Every institution we are exposed to in life from our birth to our death is the magic dust that keeps us asleep.
What we call ‘reality’ really is the illusion, the dream, the life played out as the dreamer sleeps. The dreamer, aware of the other reality being played out but frozen in the dream, tries to awaken or call out as if to cry, “Stop! That is the dream. True reality can only appear when I awaken. I am the only way to true reality and the answers you seek. Be still and you will find me, for I am always here” the voice of the dreamer whispers. Sometimes we almost awaken and know that we have been dreaming and our hearts fill with a wanderlust and exhilaration as we catch a glimpse of the true reality outside the dream. We struggle inside the dream to awaken fully to this distant knowing, long ago tucked away in the bright lights of the illusion we now experience.
Sadly, for most of us, the dream overwhelms the dreamer because the language of the dreamer cannot be understood in the language of the dream. The dream is action and drama, movement and suspense. The dreamer is still and quiet and falls again and again back into the deep sleep where the dream lies safe and protected from any onslaught of true reality.
It really is like watching a movie. The events are unreal but we attach ourselves to them emotionally as if they were. We let ourselves get drawn into the action as if we were really a part of the fictional events taking place. So lost in the movie do we become that we lose all awareness that we are sitting in a theater watching unreal events as if they were real, believing they are real!
We have coined new terminology that accepts non-reality as good enough to be reality. We call it ‘virtual reality.’ Virtual reality might be thought of as the reality of non-reality, if that could possibly make any sense. Think about non-reality becoming more real. As non-reality becomes more real, reality becomes less real. The less real reality becomes, the more difficult finding and knowing the dreamer becomes. In other words, virtual reality is “the dream becoming the dreamed.” There is no longer a dreamer!
The language already exists that makes the ego lord over all. It is the language that states, “We can feed you non-reality that is so real, you have no need for real reality”. That is the language of ego serving every need of man to the exclusion of an inner knowing of the I am that dreams it all. Wake up, dreamer, and know thyself!
The unconscious life is the life of the dreamer never waking from the dream. It is succumbing to the actual dream – the illusion that plays out as the life we live. Somehow, we must awaken from the sleep that dreams the dream we accept as reality, for everything we see or perceive as the dreamer sleeps is illusion. All of it is illusion if not perceived by the awakened dreamer, the I am, that is one with all things great and small. The dreamer is he, who in those brief moments of insight or awakening, is the non identity we seek that is interconnected to everything in existence. Sometimes our reckoning with this insight is so overwhelming that we lose all sense of our identity and we simply breathe in all of life and our oneness with it. We no longer see it as something that lies before us; rather, we are it and it is us! We are quickened, as it were, and the dreamer outside the dream is aware of nothing but oneness with all that is–the unidentifiable I Am that always is revealed to our knowing! Not our language but our true inner knowing, the knowing that cannot be known at the physical sense level other than a burst of insight and exhilaration we feel all over.
Gods have no identity, other than the ones we give them, and neither should we since we, too, are gods. Our identities, which we are so attached to, tie us to the dream and give us place within it, adding to the virtual drama being played out day in and day out.
When Moses was commanded to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, he asked God, “Who should I tell them has sent me?” to which God replied “Tell them I am has sent you.” Who is the “I Am” God was speaking of that would be recognizable to the house of Israel? How do we identify with “I Am” when we are specifically looking for something to identify ourselves with? “I Am” is not an identity but a state of being. It is not a who but a what!
Moses asked for an identity and he received a state of being instead. “I am has sent you.” Gods do not need an identity. Look at the different identities and ways we have tried to describe God through the ages. We say He is all knowing, mysterious, everywhere and nowhere, all powerful, the same yesterday, today and forever, so small He can dwell in your heart and so large He fills the universe, mindful of the least of these, but vengeful and jealous, kind and full of grace, perfect.
All of these descriptive terms are an unidentifiable way of identifying someone or something, and yet God in answering Moses’ inquiry, rather than giving him an identifiable name to use, provided a state of being. In reality, it is useless to try to identify God as anything outside of I Am. Gods simply are and when you strip away the illusion of ego and still the chattering mind, so are we. So, to the unidentified, nothing need be identifiable. It simply is a part of one universal and infinite I am, none greater than or less than. All things sharing a common I am-ness that makes all things, including us, are equal. We are, as is everything, infinite awareness. Simply I am that I am. We are existence!
When we awaken and begin living that reality, the illusion we once lived, the dream recedes into quiet background that only serves to give us a context with those who never reach the same awareness. In other words, we know the reality in which they live, and can access them, live with them in every way, even though we have moved beyond that reality. In this way, we can exist in a reality we know does not exist as anything other than an illusion or the dreams of many dreamers. It is “being in the world but not of it.”
Once we reach this state of being or awareness, things and people as we once knew them no longer need identification. Histories and stories are no longer necessary. Identifiers of any kind are no longer adequate in describing anything nor are they necessary. All the baggage of knowing differences, placements, and time lines are no longer important and are no longer necessary as we perceive that everything in existence is energy radiating in every direction and mingling with our own. Our new perception, or new seeing, takes on beauty that no three- dimensional sensing can comprehend.
Rare is the dreamer who wakes from the dream, and yet it is from the dream we must awaken in order to know the “I Am” within. That is where our true power lies and all the mysteries of heaven and earth come from that place, a place deep within. We are all gods, but for most of us, God sleeps. The noise of ego keeps the divine self at bay and our virtual reasoning convinces us over and over again that the illusion we all live in is the reality. All of our institutions support that and convince us ever more that the dream is anything but a dream.
We are gods and we all somehow know it when we awaken from the dream state most of us dwell in. Recognition of our godlike nature will never happen while we remain trapped in the illusion of our dreamlike state. The projection of life, the illusion we have accepted through years of egocentric conditioning, lacks the ability to comprehend the true power we all possess. We will never know it living the illusion and watching what most of us call ‘life’ play itself out. After all it is only a dream!
How do we know we are in the dream? The dream or illusion is finite. Anything upon which we put finite limits is illusion! That which is finite has a beginning and an ending and carries a finite description as to what it is in three dimensional terms. Ego needs finality-a right or wrong or absolute answers to questions that have no answers when speaking of the infinite. When we look out at anything and see only what we have been conditioned to see we can describe it in very finite terms. In other words “the tree is a tree” or more specifically “the tree is an oak tree.” Illusion comes with description and details-identifiers that make it perceptible in our three dimensional terms and limited to that description.
Life, true life, is infinite. Without beginning or ending. It is so much more vast than any dream. In fact, in three dimensional terms, it is incomprehensible. It can only be comprehended through the eyes of the dreamer who is typically asleep-unconscious to what is really going on around him. The inner self, the dreamer, as it were, has the eyes to see but will rarely see. Most dreamers sleep comfortably, some fitfully, in the noise of illusion and the egoic drama that plays on and on. The non-identity, the I Am, always still, always quiet awaits the dreamer to become again as a child and awaken anew into the fullness of life and the acceptance of all that is! Children know this until we who sleep put them to sleep making them a part of the same dream we dream only now we have added more dreamers to the virtual reality we accept as reality.
Stream of Life
This is the last chapter in my book: “On Human Being – Loving & Living without Purpose.”
Follow a stream from its highest point, whether it is a spring releasing water from an unknown source or from the snows of winter melting and giving their life giving waters to everything below. As the stream finds its way down from its heights, it passes by or over many obstacles along its way, but it always seems to find a way. Its course often seems impossible, but as it runs into obstacles, it finds the path of least resistance which sometimes means going around obstacles or perhaps it waits patiently to fill a certain low spot that will allow its waters to eventually flow over its would-be obstruction. As we follow the stream, it will sometimes rush in great torrents down steep hillsides or spill over high cliffs into pristine pools below. Sometimes it will meander through large open meadows where beautiful alpine flowers bloom and fill the landscape with color, fragrance and brilliance. Perhaps the stream splits off and fills the meadow with small tributaries that merge back together.
The sounds of the stream also tell us something about its travels in that it will gurgle as it meanders through unobstructed fields and meadows, but it rushes and roars as it surges over cliffs, down steep canyons filled with large boulders and other obstructions. As we continue our journey following the waters, we might see another stream joining ours, increasing its size and power. Still, the waters push forward, twisting and turning as needed to work its way around the landscape as effortlessly as possible. In fact, as we observe this stream, it never occurs to us that the waters are fighting their way downward. It all seems so effortless and easy. Even in those places where the river has cut its way through rocks and cliffs that, when looking at, simply does not look possible.
The stream weaves its way through a tapestry of life introducing us to all manner of trees, shrubs, plant life, and animal and insect life of all kinds. Some of the places the stream takes us are shaded from the sunlight and are cool and dark, even forbidding, while other places are sunlit and brilliant and the shadows cast on the moving water make it look different, even mesmerizing. There are places on its journey where it shoots through cracks in the rock and we see rainbows cast so close, we can touch them or we feel the cool mist on our faces. Everything about this journey is peaceful and calm and the constant rushing of the river soothes us and at times we may even find ourselves talking to the waters as if they could hear. They can! Never do we sense, as we journey alongside the stream, that it struggles to get where it is going. It moves effortlessly, inexorably passing by all the wonders of its long journey to get to its destination which, by the way, does not exist. As it passes by life, it gives life by giving of itself so that all is refreshed, nourished and uplifted. It is a relaxed life that looks for peace wherever it goes, and it goes where it goes simply because that is where it goes. We may find evidence along the way when it changed course or with the help of natural forces it moves out of one bed and into another. Still, it matters not. The stream is not choosing a path to follow. It is simply flowing and as it flows, the path opens up, and with each new opening, new adventure, new beauty and wonder lies before it and it brushes up against all of it, content to take it all in and give back what it can in the form of life giving water. Onward, ever onward, it moves through hills and valleys, forest and fields. Taking in but giving back.
The stream gives life, but is given to life as life is given to it. Its course is never straight nor is it narrow or wide. We cannot map its exact course because a map of the stream’s journey could never account for every detail the stream encounters on its way down the mountain. The stream does not choose this way or that. It simply flows where the grade of the mountain (life) takes it and it embraces and gives back to everything it encounters on its way. Every aspect of the journey is just that – part of the journey. There is no purpose other than to serve as that part of the journey. That incredible moment is as the water passes by all that matters and all is uplifted and better for the experience. No great crossroads or turning points in this encounter or that one. Just life giving of itself for all to marvel at and enjoy. The stream moves on, as do we.
There are no perfect geometric patterns in life as we all would like to believe there is, or as our math and science teachers say. The straight path does not exist except in our imagined lives. There is no straight way to any purpose we consider to be our very own. Life is a stream! We are taught from a very early age that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but no part of our life on earth is a straight line. In life, the shortest distance between two points is the one that took you from point A to point B regardless of what distance you traveled or the time it took. Ego looks at life in a finite way, and in so doing, it must find order and structure that was never intended to be there. Our true life is an infinite experience and every twist and turn, the ebbs and flows, as we call them, are never consistent with what our egos expect. This is the cause of suffering in individuals as well as in society. Ego constructs a true and ordered life and even uses sacred writings and ancient wisdom to reason with us that if we follow the prescribed path it reasons is the correct one, life will work out and flow effortlessly to the end.
Those who rigidly follow their ego’s prescribed course often find themselves in turmoil and needless suffering because they followed the rules and they didn’t get where they were supposed to. Life is full of Monday morning quarterbacks looking back at what went wrong with their plan or what they could have done differently to achieve the pre-planned outcome. We see this second guessing, questioning in every aspect of our lives including religion, academics, and occupations. We might hear someone exclaim, “I followed God’s laws as I have been taught them”, or “I worked hard and did everything I was supposed to, but why was I not protected or spared an outcome I was sure could not happen if I obeyed all the rules.” Unlike the natural flow of the stream which always finds its way, many will push against the natural course of life. They will push against it and question their misfortune. You can almost see them standing in the stream facing upward with clenched fist defying the direction of flow as if challenging it to reverse its direction and go where they command it. All it does, however, is move forward, following its natural course, either moving around you as you fight against it, or sweeping you up in its current. Life does not care about the choices we make. Life, like the river, flows on, embracing everything in its path, and giving back every step of the way. If we could see our lives as a river or stream and simply flow with it, our journey would be so much more pleasant and our expectations would not get mixed up or confused with the twists and turns in life we could not see coming.
The grand part of life we can all enjoy is the pure experience of it. A river has no purpose other than to flow where it will, and it is the same for us. Life flows on whether we resist it or not. Why not enjoy it? Human ego is so busy finding or giving meaning to the process of life and finding justification and cause for everything that happens that we miss much of its inherent beauty. We pass by the works of man or nature and never see them because our focus is on understanding life rather than living it. In trying to understand it or analyze it, we miss it or it passes us by. Every bend in the stream, every change in direction is an opportunity to experience life in a new and incredible way, and particularly from our own unique perspective. Maybe we won’t experience things as others might, but what we do experience is uniquely ours and the only enrichment we need take from any experience is our own to appreciate and fully embrace. “What happens; happens.” Not because we have control over life by the choices we make, but because there are no wrong choices, which is the same as saying there are no choices at all. If we participate in life without the mental anguish of deciding the better of all our various choices then anything we do, any path we follow will be good and right and un-judge-worthy. This type of participation in life removes the resistance we feel as well.
I used to tell my daughter, who would work so hard to get cast in school plays, or achieve academic success only to be disappointed over and over, that life was not fair. I would tell her that she would encounter situations throughout her life that would prove that life was unfair and that she would be mistreated along the way, even though she worked harder and harder to achieve her objectives. How naïve I was and, unfortunately, the message I imparted to her was completely wrong. Not only is life fair, but it is completely honest. Life is truth therefore it cannot be dishonest. The only dishonesty in life is our own dishonesty which culminates deep within the egoic structures of the mind. Our egoic identity is the only thing on this planet that resists the natural flow of life, to the point that what we have come to believe about ourselves and what we are is the only dishonest thing in life. Ego-constructed reality and reality are diametrically opposed to each other and we get caught up in the game of life that convinces us that life is hard and not always just or fair. Ego is always swimming against the current of life, trying to offer another kind of reasoning for the ebb and flow that doesn’t always seem so pleasant. Life is always honest and it always finds the way to bear that out. How hard we sometimes struggle to keep what we know about ourselves from ever seeing the light of day, and so we bring dishonesty to the light of life. Our lies, our dishonesty dims the light of life, and compounds our struggle against the stream that, if we would only let go of everything we hold so tightly to, would all drift out of sight and our lives would freely and effortlessly blend together with the flow of life never to be consumed in worry, doubt or the endless game of making ourselves “other” than ourselves.
Nothing in our three dimensional awareness can account for what is really happening and therein lies the greatest lie we tell ourselves. The more precise and defined we become, the less aware we are; and the more we convince ourselves that we are precise and defined, the more of our true selves we trample under foot, and the greater our lie becomes. The lack of awareness culminates in the denial of the stream of life we all follow. It is to convince ourselves that we can make the stream of life straight and exact according to geometric rules that only hold in a manmade reality. We convince ourselves that within the sterile structure of manmade forms is the answer to who we are if we but push science to find the one simple equation that defines everything we will ever need to know. Only the ego could have created such a lie. Only ego could convince us that straight lines can be found in nature and that a formula can be derived that will be able to predict everything we can expect for the future and give an explanation for everything that has happened in the past. Conscious awareness is a very limited awareness because of its ability to dump so much information so quickly we cannot even sense that it is happening.
As we meander or tumble through life, we tend to miss the incredible sights along the way as they are happening, but we know they were there because we think back upon them. Sometimes we look forward to the horizon out yonder and think that when we get there, things will be so much better, or all our questions will be answered. We easily look forward and backward because those are the places we can most freely and successfully lie about. In the conversation we have with ourselves, we can reminisce how much better things were “back then” or how much better they will be in some future “when”. Now, the present moment we exist in right now, is an honest moment that is pure and untainted by any thought for yesterday or tomorrow until our egoic reaction to it poisons it with untruth. Facing the present is our most daunting challenge because of its purity. In our un-pure state, we have difficulty facing the purity of present reality because being present forces us to look at ourselves without the ideological masks that we have created to shield us from the glare of present reality. Being present strips us clean of all the false definition we use to demonstrate ourselves to the world. It is a scary place for the ego. In fact, it is a place the ego cannot exist in because ego is anything but honest. Ego needs identity. That is why it always reminds us and everyone else of its past accomplishments or projected future achievements. These are its cover; a safe haven from something that cannot be explained in its terms, its language.
The stream of life is infinite. The egoic life is finite. The two cannot co-exist. They cancel each other out. Either we are in the flow and completely truthful or we are in illusion and living a lie. The stream of life is enjoined with the world and nothing is missed along the way. The largest of egos and the highest degrees of knowledge and education cannot describe what the stream knows. Its world is the whole world and it is one with it. It knows the terrain, the hills, valley and rocks along the way and is never fooled by images condensed and printed on a map that the ego provides. It feels everything and reaches out to everything, as it gives to life, its “own” life. Consciousness cuts away so much of life while ego tries so hard to convince us that what we are conscious of is the real nuts and bolts of life. It works hard to convince us that its view of the world “is” the world. Its view is always looking backward or forward, but never does it acknowledge the present with its billions and billions of pieces of information discernible right now to a quiet non-egoic soul.
We are in the stream of life whether the egoic self believes it or not, and the stream always moves ahead, even if we fight against the current. Our experience is an unfolding. The more we flow with life, the more a part of us life becomes. Every aspect of the terrain we pass through is our guide, our map and our journey becomes an infinite stream of intuition and awareness that consciousness no longer blots out. Our intuition and our wonderful bodies are sensory instruments available to all of us to navigate and enjoy our life experience here on planet earth. We step off the cosmic train for a short time and we can enjoy the experience or fight against it. We choose. The ego created world is calculated and sterile and does everything it can to reduce the stimulation we all are equipped to comprehend. Granted, the comprehension is not in the language of ego, which has also been stripped away of the greater part of knowing. Our intuitive abilities need to be at the forefront of our awareness, not in the background as they often are. Tune them in and turn on the truth of real life. Real existence! Destiny is unknown, therefore, non-existent.
The possibilities available to us along our journey through life are endless. Ego wants to see and plan for the end. It seeks a goal, an end that, when reached, is somehow a utopic conclusion to a well-planned life strategy. I was speaking with a friend one evening who was looking for a catalyst of perhaps thought or an individual such as Buddha or Jesus, who by their words and deeds could change the hearts and minds of people to live in peace. He shared his thoughts about how the so-called age of enlightenment some 500 years earlier, which was ushered in by such great minds as Newton, Descartes, Pascal and others, had failed to provide the predicted “know how” to change a dark world into an enlightened one. The age of enlightenment was supposed to find “mind made” solutions to all the ills of human existence, including war, poverty, education, government, and every other aspect of life. My friend recognized the failure of the intellectual mind or so-called “enlightened mind” to accomplish anything other than to increase suffering and the carnage of war on a greater, more massive scale. While he lamented this failure of enlightened minds to solve complex world issues, he asked me, “If the age of enlightenment is not the answer, what is the catalyst, event or individual that brings about changes the enlightenment sought but could not produce?”
My answer was not what he wanted to hear. I told him that to look, in any way, to an outward cause, to an individual, or event would never bring about the changes in human existence he sought. The only change or catalyst he could ever affect was his own. I told him that we, as humans, are all a part of the stream of life, but that we each are our own stream as well. Individually, we affect the larger stream, but with human reasoning, we will likely never see it. When we become our own catalyst, our change, we become the larger stream and it becomes us and our outlook on the conditions of the world we wish were different becomes part of a compassionate whole. When such a change takes place in us individually, everything else changes as well. My friend listened thoughtfully, but was unable to see it. His mind was convinced that something big and extraordinary was needed to alter things in the world as we know it. My response to him was that an individual transformation to higher awareness is big and extraordinary, but he would not accept that as an answer. “There must be something,” he mused. I could not help him.
The majority of us look for the same thing. We look to our gods, our leaders, our parents, someone, anyone or anything that will reverse the way things are in a massive and dramatic way. We are conditioned to be this way. Heaven forbid we allow ourselves control of our own lives. That is how it was in the so-called enlightenment, when highly sophisticated and educated men determined that they could figure out anything intellectually. It continues to be a myth in the present day, yet the stream flows onward, ever onward and as long as we look for the utopic conclusion, the life strategy or catalyst that changes in a massive way those things we have determined must change we swim against the current of life. Life is, at that point, a struggle and we will never win against it. Despite our struggle and good intentions, we will be washed away in the inexorable flow of life that always moves forward.
Everyone is eventually swept away in the current of life. Some hang on until the very end while others stop resisting and glimpse the beauty and splendor that is always there if we simply let ourselves get caught up in the flow. The stream of life simply is! So too is life. Life is about being in the flow, not having or fighting for or against it. Regardless of the things we determine to be important, or the causes we choose, we struggle against or go with the stream of life but it always flows onward to an infinite destination we will never know. But we need not know because such knowing will not add one thing to the incredible beauty, abundance and wonder of our existence. We need only breathe life as it breathes us and go where it takes us. There is no end in infinity! The stream of life is eternal life; so are you!
Of Carts and Bags – A tale of Christmas
It was a cool, somewhat gloomy morning with a light snow falling but not accumulating. Just a few things to be done including a quick trip into town to pick up some things to complete a project I was finishing up. The large home improvement store, in town, wasn’t crowded, surprisingly, especially for a weekend and so close to Christmas. I suspect the dreariness of the day was the reason so few were out and about.
I made my purchases, exited the store and began making my way across the parking lot to my car when I noticed out of the corner of my eye an older, disheveled woman, running in the direction of my car and on a trajectory that would intercept me just about the time I reached the car myself. I didn’t give it much thought until she raised her hand and started calling out, “sir, sir, oh sir can you help me out?” I looked up without really considering that my car was alone in that section of the parking lot and while I acknowledged her call to me for help I assumed she was going to ask me to assist her in loading something in her car. I was only too happy to be of assistance but looking around the parking lot there were no cars nearby that I thought might be hers.
As she approached me she surprised me by asking if I could drive her to meet a friend exactly seven point two miles up the highway. I quickly thought how odd it was that she knew the exact mileage to her destination but before I could say a word she told me her car had broken down and she really needed to meet her friend just up the road. She offered to pay me for gas if I could just help her out in this small but important way. There was an urgency in her plea that overwhelmed any sense of concern in me and I simply agreed to take her to meet her friend. She was so grateful and thanked me profusely while I opened the car door to let her into my car. As she passed in front of me to get into the car I noticed the foulest smell. It was the smell of dirty wet dog with a hint of urine and rotting milk.
I got into the car, started the engine and quickly opened my window as the smell was so disturbing. I put the car into gear and began moving when she asked if I could go up to the other end of the parking lot so she could get some things from her car to take with her. I agreed and slowly moved across the lot expecting her to point out her car so I could stop and she could gather the things she needed. As we neared the edge of the building she instructed me to stop but there were only a few cars nearby parked in the employee parking area. I asked her which car was hers and she just instructed me to stop. I stopped and as she stepped out of the car she told me to just stay here and I’ll be right back.
I looked around to see which car she was going to get into but she slipped in between two cars and began pushing a shopping cart that was full of boxes and plastic grocery bags. I stepped out of the car and she called out, “oh no you don’t need to help, I can get this.” I walked back to the rear of my car and opened the rear gate and began to remove items from the cart and place them into the car. It dawned me that there really wasn’t a broken down car and that the items I was loading into my car were her possessions. Worn out clothing, worn out shoes and a dirty sleeping bag along with some odds and ends that I knew must be important to her. Her story about her broken down car now seemed a ploy to tug on my heartstrings to get me to help her out. MY demeanor changed from cheery helper to guarded dupe who had just been taken by a homeless, bag lady.
We got everything into the car, stepped into the car ourselves and headed for the interstate on ramp heading north. She reiterated that the destination was only seven point two miles up the highway and that she truly appreciated me helping her out. I didn’t say anything because I was now put out. She began to speak of how she had fallen on hard times, that her mother had fallen very ill and lost her house while her father died suddenly just about the time she lost her own job. It was a tale of hardship and loss but she never really lost her perkiness as she told it. She seemed very happy to be alive even amidst the hardships she had encountered. She thanked me over and over even as I tried to tell her it was no big deal and not to worry.
I kept a close eye on the odometer because I didn’t want to overrun her exit but we drove far beyond the seven point two miles she said we were going and I began to wonder just how far the drive would be. It was about fifteen miles. I was stewing. She pointed out the exit we were to take and I made the turn off the freeway when she asked me, “you know, speaking of hard luck if you wanted to help me out with a few dollars I would really appreciate it. “This was the proverbial straw.
I blurted back abruptly, “wait a minute, you mean you’re asking me for money when you offered to pay me for gas to drive you to where you are going?” She responded, “oh yes that’s right I did offer to pay for gas. How much would you like for your gas.” I was flabbergasted. I wasn’t about to take any money from her but I asked, “do you even have a car?” She said that she did have one about seven years ago. Very sternly I began to lecture her about her lack of honesty and how if she was up front and honest that she might get a better response from people and more would be likely to help her out. She agreed with everything I said and began apologizing and promised that she would take to heart all the things I told her would make her a better panhandler.
She became very quiet other than to point out a Target store down the road that was where she would be getting out. I was feeling smug as could be that I had exerted my two cents and had successfully given her useful instruction on being a better homeless person. I drove her to a place where excess shopping carts had been lined up along the outer wall of the building and stopped, got out of the car while she did the same. Without speaking she walked over got a cart and wheeled it back to the car and I began helping her load. She placed each bag in a particular order and meticulously positioned them as if she knew exactly where each one belonged in that particular cart. She didn’t have much but she loved what she had. My heart tugged.
When she finished loading she looked up at me and thanked me again not only for the ride but the instruction as well. She offered to pay again and I told her there is no way I will take any money from you. I then reached into my pocket and removed my wallet, took out every bill I had and handed it to her. It wasn’t more than seventy dollars and she pleaded with me that she would not take it while reaching over as fast as she could and snatching from my hands. It didn’t matter. I would have given her more if I had it. I was feeling a bit like a heal but her graciousness poured out again and she thanked me over and over. I smiled at her and told her she should have a nice meal with her friend.
The encounter was over. I got into my car, drove out of the parking lot and about the time I was entering the main road when I suddenly burst into laughter. Not ordinary laughter but debilitating, full on, belly laughter. You know the kind that takes your breath away and creates tears that stream down your face. I had to pull over to the side of the road because I had no bodily control and was not able to see the road through the tears. I roared like never before and the convulsive heaves of laughter poured from my mouth in huge waves. I was hysterical; absolutely hysterical. This lasted for several minutes before I could see through my tear soaked eyes and I began to breathe deeply and methodically so I could regain enough composure to make the drive back home.
As I was sitting there the thoughts began to pour in. I had just lectured this lady, who carried all her possessions in a shopping cart, on the virtues of honesty in the performance of living an effective “homeless” life while at the same time realizing that not only had she secured the ride to her next place of temporary residence but she got all my money as well and by doing it exactly the way she had always done it! I began to laugh again, only this time at the smugness of my offering her a better way while sitting on the side of the road, roughly thirty miles from home and not a penny in my pocket.
There is no lesson here or profound meaning. This is nothing more than a chance encounter with a fellow soul whose trajectory in life happened upon mine at this unique time and place in the eternities. I judged her and who knows but perhaps she judged me, as well, but even still it was the connection of two souls living the life they were living and without the judgments each life was perfectly fine. We find a way, don’t we?
I smile, still, when I think of this intersection of our paths and often wonder how she is doing and really how special my encounter with her was. A lecture, a laugh and smiles for the memories. Looking back and then returning to the present there is no one I would have rather given my money and a ride too. Merry Christmas.